


where we are now

by stuff_and_nonsense



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Getting Together, Hurt Yasha, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Injuries, Multi, Post-Battle care, past yasha/zuala
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-02 08:44:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18807706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuff_and_nonsense/pseuds/stuff_and_nonsense
Summary: Yasha is restless after a battle. She finds the cause and the cure with Jester and Beau.





	where we are now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alwaystheocean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alwaystheocean/gifts).



After the battle, Yasha goes for a long walk. She’s restless, but she can’t say why. Normally she feels calmer during the comedown from a fight, like she’s pushed all her anger out and left a quiet space behind, but today it’s left her on edge and irritable. So while the rest of the Nein are regrouping, healing their wounds and dealing with the dead bandits, she walks ahead, deciding to meet them back at the town. 

Beau catches her as she tries to slip away. “I’ll meet you at the inn,” Yasha says. “I’m not leaving for long.” They don’t argue, or she doesn’t give them time to as she walks away. 

She leaves the road, taking a roundabout way through the fields around them. She’ll head back towards town, but she goes off at an angle first to stretch the journey out, one that will let her loop back when she’s ready. There’s an ache in her side, a wound there where she’d taken a bandit’s shortsword. It’s minor – she’s had far worse – but she moderates her pace, walks instead of setting of at the jog her nervous energy asks for.

It had been a nasty battle, when they hadn’t expected much of one at all. Beau had gone down early, shot full of arrows, and then Jester had been hit crouching down to heal her. Yasha’d tried to help, caught one swordpoint for her and deflected another, but it hadn’t been enough. They were both awake now, back on their feet and cheerful about it, but it had stuck with Yasha. It didn’t make sense – she’d seen them hurt before, knocked out before. But today it was sticking with her.

She walks faster, cutting across a pasture of sheep. She wishes Zuala were here. She’d always been able to decode Yasha’s moods, pick up on what was bothering her before Yasha herself did. Given her the time to rage when she needed to, and a place to come back to afterwards. 

Yasha climbs the fence out of the pasture, goes on over the crest of a low hill. There’s no one around that she can see, although she knows which way the town is. “We had a battle early, Zuala,” she says aloud. “I killed two people who attacked us, and Nott killed another. I wasn’t hurt badly, but Beau and Jester were. It still feels like something’s wrong, even though the fight’s over.” She feels foolish, and looks around again to make sure there’s still no one there. 

It’s not so hard to figure out what Zuala would say, once she’s walking again. _Your friends got hurt, you big sweet dummy. Go check on them._ It does seem like a good idea, even though she hasn’t worried like this before. She turns in the direction of the town, and picks up the pace.

It’s dark by the time she reaches the edge of town, and the wound in her side is hurting worse. She hears Jester’s voice in her head, one of those disconcerting messages. “Hi Yasha!” she says. “Hope you’re doing ok. We are at the inn. Beau and I are upstairs, on the – east side, thanks Caleb. There’s an extra – “

“Ok,” Yasha says, and keeps walking. It’s a small town, and she gets looks as she enters, by the handful of people still out. There are lights in the windows of the inn still, and only a few patrons still downstairs, not including her friends. She doesn't want to talk to the owner, so she circles around the back, to what she’s pretty sure is the east side.

It’s not hard to find the window of Beau and Jester’s room. They’re talking about the battle, telling each other how badass they were, and neither of their voices are exactly quiet. Yasha considers knocking on the window, but she doesn’t want to interrupt, and she’s still restless. She sits down against the inn wall, feels the night air on her face as she listens. 

The topic of conversation turns to her. Oh no. Jester is worrying, not sure if she was hurt, and Yasha feels a pang of guilt. She stands up again, and tosses a pebble against the window.

Jester leans out. “Yasha!” she says. “Where did you go? Are you ok?”

“I’m fine,” Yasha says, embarrassed. “I just went for a walk.” 

Beau sticks her head out too, leaning on top of Jester. “Were you sitting there listening to us? How long have you been out here?”

“Not long,” Yasha tells her. Her cheeks are hot, and she hopes neither of them can see well enough in the dark to tell.

“Well you should come up here!” Jester says. “Do you think you can fit through this window?”

“Probably,” Yasha says. It’ll be a little tight, but she’d rather try than deal with the innkeeper right now. She backs up and makes a running jump, grabs on to the edge of the windowsill. Jester and Beau help haul her in.

She winces, once she’s on her feet inside. Climbing jostled something in her wound from earlier, and there’s a bit of blood leaking through her shirt.

Jester starts fussing immediately. “I’m fine,” Yasha protests, but she allows herself to be sat down on the bed, and starts undoing the laces of her shirt. She may as well get the injury wrapped up.

It’s worse than she’d thought, when she has it exposed. Not deep, but long, starting under her breast and curving down around her side.

Beau winces sympathetically when she sees it. “That looks nasty. You, uh, want a hand to hold while Jester heals it?”

It’s unnecessary, of course, and Yasha almost says no. Beau looks so earnest though, grinning at her. And Yasha’s still on edge from the battle earlier. A concrete reminder that her friends are alive, intact, here, might help ease her.

“All right,” she says.

Beau’s eyes widen in surprise, and she sits down on the bed. She places her hand, warm and small, into Yasha’s. Yasha hadn’t realized how much she’d missed this, those small points of human contact. She’s growing self-conscious too though, from Beau’s eyes on her. More concerned than lecherous, but still disconcertingly attentive.

She focuses on Jester, who’s laying cool hands over her wound. There’s a brief ache as the cut knits together. Yasha runs a finger over the place where it had been. Not even a scar.

“Thank you,” she says. She fights for her next words for a moment, remembers her deliberations earlier. “Are you ok?” she asks. “You were hurt too.”

“We’re fine,” Jester tells her happily. “Cad healed us both right after the battle.”

They don’t seem hurt. They’re both moving easily, no sign of hidden injuries. Yasha’s tension starts to ease a little.

“I guess we should go to bed?” says Jester. “I’m pretty tired, and if someone else gets hurt I can’t help them.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty wiped out too,” says Beau. She’s still holding on to Yasha’s hand.

Yasha realizes for the first time that there’s only one bed in this inn room, and not a particularly large one. “I can sleep outside,” she says.

“Don’t be silly,” Jester tells her, “there’s plenty of room. And you need to actually rest so you heal properly.”

She’s pretty sure she’s healed, but she doesn’t want to argue. And she does miss sleeping around other people: those nights with Zuala, or with her clan before that, or in the circus wagon with Molly.

“All right,” she says again. “Let me stay by the window.” She can at least be ready if something attacks in the night.

She laces her shirt back up and pulls off her boots, before wedging her sword between the bed and the wall, just under the window. Then she sits on the far side of the bed, uncomfortably conscious of how much space she takes up.

Beau and Jester prepare for bed. To her surprise, Beau leans down to kiss Jester goodnight, tentative but unmistakable.

Beau notices her noticing. “It’s a pretty new development,” she says, rubbing the back of her neck. “It’s not weird for you, is it?”

“No,” says Yasha. She’s happy for them, that they’ve found each other.

Jester walks over, carefully touches her hand. “You know we care about you a lot too, right Yasha?”

“Of course,” Yasha says. And that’s something she has, something she should hold onto, even though it’s frightening, to be cared for after so many losses.

“If you wanted to, you know, room with us more often…” Beau begins. “For Jester to make sure you’re ok like tonight, or just to have the company…”

It’s clear that there’s more to the question than Beau’s saying aloud, more that she’s offering that just a place to sleep occasionally. There’s a tension in the room, buzzing between the three of them, but it’s not like the nervous energy she’d tried to walk off earlier. It’s warmer, steadier, though still frightening. Potential, maybe, is the right word.

“I’d like that,” she says. 

Jester’s hand is still on hers. Yasha twines their fingers together. Beau is a few feet back, nervous; Yasha reaches her free hand out to her. She closes her eyes, and feels lips against hers, arms wrapped around her back.

There’s an ache in her chest that can’t possible come from the rib wound. Behind her closed eyes, Zuala is smiling at her. She opens them, and Beau and Jester are doing the same. She smiles back.

Then they’re in the bed, Beau pressed against her, Jester on Beau’s other side, her tail resting on Yasha’s ankle. She hears them breathing, safe and alive, and for now, her tension slips away.


End file.
